24 Hours to Smell the Roses

If you had 24 hours in the greenest city in America, what would you do? Sleep? I don’t think so. Instead, the inquisitive Udall crew decided to take to the streets of Portland and find out if the purported redolence of the City of Roses smelled true. Here’s an hour by hour itinerary of our time in Portland. Enjoy!

1700: Arrive at Portland State University dorms in downtown Portland. Pass out maps of city.
1705: Maps lost in depths of bags, under beds, in laundromats, or possibly down storm water drains. Udall scholars helpless in big city.
1730: Bob leaves with Savanna and Eli for the Hawthorne District, Portland’s hipster mecca, replete with tight jeans and square reading glasses. As Kayanna is out of town, all people with experience in the city have departed. The rest of the group groans in despair.

1845: Remainder of Udall crew departs for Roots Brewing Company using Bob’s directions, which manage to get them soundly confused. Group spins in circles hoping for guidance.
1930: Group miraculously arrives at Roots Brewery (shortly after Bob finds them wandering on the highway over Hawthorne Bridge),* Portland’s first all organic brewery. We rendezvous with Meg Matthews, Udall Scholar ’03. Group proceeds to drink organic beer infused with lavender, goes on a tour of the brewery, and drinks free organic beer. Yes! It’s local too.
2100: Some continue to drink. Others wander the streets, which happen to be very safe.
2200: Some people are in bed, others probably should be.
0000: Bret Muter and Eli work diligently by quill pen and candlelight, while the rest of the group sleeps, or doesn’t.
0700: Group awakes, then hits the collective alarm, falls back asleep.
0742: Udall scholars emerge from Portland State University dorms like butterflies from a cocoon - very tired, irritable, butterflies. Caffeine is their nectar.
0800: Nectar sighted at People’s Cooperative Grocery in SE Portland. Scholars meet with Fran Warren, mother of rider Kayanna Warren, who provides them with sweet nectar (so good when it hits your lips), local berries, bagels, and bottles of wine (most save this for later).
0845: Emily from People’s gives a brief overview of the community aspects behind running Portland’s only cooperatively-owned and collectively-managed grocery store.

0855: Bob demonstrates the skills he’s learned by volunteering as a bulk stocker at People’s for the past 6 months, such as the art of positioning his mouth beneath the organic chocolate chip funnel.
0900: Duke Castle from the Oregon Natural Step Network presents THE NATURAL STEP (ta da!). People’s socks are blown off. Duke recommends a local, organic sock company for replacements.
1100: Udall crew leaves for downtown Portland and the Pearl District, home of Portland’s fine art and chic shopping, not to mention Powell’s Books, the largest independent book store this side of the Mississippi (Darn you, Delaware!). Udallers, as any environmentally-sensitive intellectual superstars, blow all of their cash on used books.
1130: Bob and Jenny roll toward the Blossoming Lotus, an all-vegan, mostly local and organic restaurant with a specialty selection of raw foods. Oh yes, there’s a yoga studio attached. Ah, Portland.
1300: Some Udallers meet with Savanna’s friend, Amanda Peden, who is currently working in the Ecotrust Building, a LEED Gold building which is home to only environmentally and/or socially responsible organizations. Tenants include HOTLIPS Pizza (local, organic pizza), Patagonia (environmentally-minded outdoor apparel), Ecotrust (non-profit working to rebuilding the economy of the Pacific NW in a sustainable fashion), an environmental investment company, the first environmental bank in the U.S., the Portland Office of Sustainable Development, and Bob’s camping tent (he never leaves).
1400: On the road to Regence Boys and Girls Club, which opened on June 18th. Udallers meet with Dean Simpson, local farmer from Wildcat Mountain Farms.

1530: Udallers and Dean teach 50 youth from Regence and Meyer Memorial Boys and Girls Clubs about local and organic food, how to make sustainable pizza (Yum! Is that pizza that renews itself? Sign me up.), and hand out and discuss how to grow food plant starts (tomatoes, greens) provided by Dean. Specialty pizzas include apple, walnut, and blue cheese as well as corn, salsa, black bean, and tortilla chips.
1630: Kids consume pizza, give us thumbs up, teach me what “phat” means, says it describes the pizza.
1700: Udallers make stellar pizzas of their own, garnished with love (as well as fresh basil, thank goodness – love only gets you so far in the culinary world).
1800: Udallers hit the dusty trail hard - so hard that the dust cloud blocks out all light and sight. Udall bus stops, waits, hits the trail less hard, rides for Grand Ronde.

Author’s Note: The pizza project was amazing. It was our first service project where we were directly teaching people about environmental issues. The fifty participants came away with more than great pizza; when questioned by the Regence Boys and Girls Club Program Director, several responded with clear and concise definitions of sustainability, local, and organic food, as well as why all of those aspects matter. I couldn’t have asked for a tastier treat.

* Bob uses the Hawthorne Bridge in his other life (as a mild-mannered sustainability consultant, rather than a caped crusader of public service) to commute by bike to his workplace in downtown Portland.

By Bob Filbin